Daddy’s Advice: “Let it be!”

Maybe you’ve heard the story of the man whose neighbor saw him come home every day from a hard day at work and stop in his yard before entering the house and would hold his hands out and run them up and down on the leaves of a certain tree. Then the man would go inside. One day the neighbor asked the man why he went up to that tree every day. The man told him about his anxieties and difficulties at work and about how much he loved his family. He didn’t want to take his troubles into his home and bother his family so he picked a tree that he called his “Trouble Tree” where he would leave his problems. He said it always amazed him how few troubles were on that tree the next morning. We all need a way to let go of our troubles.

My Dad had a particular way of dealing with his troubles. He had a way of saying, “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff,” but it wasn’t in church-appropriate words. I have told Cindy for years that I want the saying on my tombstone. She has refused, of course, due to the quote’s edginess. I have suggested getting it translated into Hebrew, Greek, or Gaelic, but no dice. I can’t even let you know what it is, but, suffice it to say, it means, in essence, “Try not to worry.” I’ve thought a lot about Daddy in my post-Annual Conference processing and discernment. Our imminent celebration of Father’s Day has him on my mind, too.

The way that I have most heard his advice intoned during the last few days has come from an unlikely source, and one I’m pretty sure he would dislike: The Beatles. Driving around in my car since last week and listening to my favorite playlist, Paul McCartney’s song “Let It Be” has been my “go-to” song. I never really gave much thought to what the lyrics meant. Over the years I think I guessed that the words, “Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be…,” was some reference to the Virgin Mary, and I thought that “Let it be” was a prayer-like phrase with a connotation of “que sera, sera,” i.e.; “whatever will be, will be.” The notion that whatever happens is going to happen as if God pre-planned disasters, shootings and calamities is malarkey. It doesn’t leave room for human choice and the sheer evil that occurs.

After really listening to the song in the context of some of my personal anxiety and discernment about the future, it hit me! This is my Dad’s saying in different words! “Let it be,” means “leave it alone,” not “let it happen.” Give it to God, walk away, don’t keep fretting and dwelling on the “what-if’s” of life. Let it be! It’s not about accepting things the way they are as if there’s no way to change things. It’s about not getting so worked up that you can’t think or hear straight.

Actually that’s what Paul McCartney says about the song’s origin. He was at a low point in his life, and was sensing that the Beatle’s weren’t going to make it much longer as a band. His childhood anchor was his mother who died when he was fourteen. When he wrote the song he was at the point that her face was beginning to fade from his memory and he desperately needed her, just like I still need my Dad.

So in the midst of despair, McCartney’s mother came to him, and her name was Mary. He described what happened, “So in this dream twelve years later, my mother appeared, and there was her face, completely clear, particularly her eyes, and she said to me very gently, very reassuringly: ‘Let it be.’ It was lovely. I woke up with a great feeling. It was really like she had visited me at this very difficult point in my life and gave me this message: Be gentle, don’t fight things, just try and go with the flow and it will all work out. So, being a musician, I went right over to the piano and started writing a song: ‘When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me’… Mary was my mother’s name… ‘Speaking words of wisdom, let it be. There will be an answer, let it be.’ It didn’t take long. I wrote the main body of it in one go, and then the subsequent verses developed from there: ‘When all the broken-hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be.’”

So, as I discern and we all try to figure out the senseless tragedies of life as in all the broken-hearted people in Charleston, SC, we leave alone that which we cannot know, and do something about what we do know to find or create solace, justice, and hope. We don’t just shut down and give into a tragic and fatalistic cosmic plan. My way of letting things be is to go to God in prayer, embrace solitude in tiny and large moments, and trust that God always is present.He doesn’t cause pain, but has entered our pain through the wounded Christ to redeem it. Therefore, instead of Mother Mary coming to me and whispering words of wisdom, it’s Jesus standing up on the storm-tossed boat and rebuking the wind and waves and saying, “Peace, be still!” I’ll wait for His answer and trust His tremendous love for all of God’s children. On this tumultuous ride that we call life, don’t work yourself into worse thinking and reactions: Let it be.